Friday, November 05, 2010

Chewing light!

Light up your smile with Triboluminescence and yes we can make a lightning like effect with wintergreen candy just by chewing them in the dark! That's what we did today as a science experiment! We bought wint o green lifesavers (don't try the sugar-free ones they won't work as well), the 3 of us squeezed into the 1/2 bathroom, put a towel in front of the door and shut off the lights and started crunching on our candy! WOW, sparks were flying and this was easily one of the kids favorite science experiments for the year. We also tried it with a pair of pliers and it worked too! Then, we tried mixing sugar in a glass bowl and it was sparking also!

Explanation:

You are generating light energy by triboluminescence because each time you chew the candy your teeth are tearing apart the chemical bonds that were formed when the liquid candy was molded into a solid lifesaver. Wintergreen contains molecules that exhibit triboluminescnece.